The present invention relates to vacuum systems, and more particularly to an apparatus and related method of utilizing articulating vacuum plates to manipulate a film or polymeric sheet and form a three dimensional article.
There are many forming systems designed to thermal vacuum form two dimensional, flat polymeric sheets into three dimensional finished products. As an example, certain packaging can be thermoformed by heating a plastic sheet. A vacuum is drawn through multiple ports in a fixed, contoured mold. The vacuum draws the heated (and thus more pliable) sheet to conform the sheet to three dimensional contours of the mold. After satisfactory contact between the sheet and mold is achieved, the vacuum is discontinued and the now formed packaging is allowed to cool. Thereafter, the three dimensionally formed packaging is removed from the contoured mold and in some cases further processed.
While this works for certain thermally deformable materials and sheets, it does not work for certain films that have a high melting or deformation temperature. It also does not work for sheets of polymeric film that are thin and very flexible, but that need to be held in place during the forming process. In some cases, it is not desirable to heat or thermally alter certain types of sheets of films during a forming process; in which case the above type of vacuum forming does not work particularly well.
Accordingly, there remains room for improvement in the field of forming polymeric films and/or sheets into three dimensional articles.